An indie game store app by the name of Itch recently tried to get their storefront up and running through Steam, and found themselves denied of the ability to host it through Steam.

Itch.io runs an indie game marketplace called Itch which is accessible through your average desktop client. However, they recently tried to get the marketplace onto Steam to allow even easier game sharing. However, they were denied access and were told that their marketplace app is “incompatible with Greenlight”.

Itch.io has gone a step further and shared the message they received directly from Valve detailing a bit about the decision.

“Hello, Thank you for your interest in Steam. We’d like to be able to continue supporting a variety of types of non-game software on Steam, but the reality is that were finding that we’re finding that we just don’t have the tools and processes to handle many types of non-gaming software very well right now. We made some recent changes to non-gaming software in Greenlight to focusing on a categories [sic] of software for game developers and content creators. These are the valid categories of software we are accepting for now: • Animation & Modeling • Audio Production • Design & Illustration • Photo Editing • Video Production We’d like to accept more kinds of software on Steam, but right now we need to focus on a smaller scope until we have better tools and processes in place.”

While these categories don’t cover everything already available on Steam through Greenlight, it’s hardly surprising that Steam would deny access to a potential competitor. We may yet hear more from Valve on the matter, but for now this case seems to be closed.

If you’re interested in checking out Itch, you can visit their page here.